


cover me in all your rays

by tinyweirdloves



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, i'll stop now, is reincarnation a tag, oh and yes it's a larry fic i swear, ok this looks like i'm on crack or something but please please take it seriously, what do i tag this as
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-19
Updated: 2013-03-19
Packaged: 2017-12-05 20:32:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/727641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinyweirdloves/pseuds/tinyweirdloves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry used to be dead and he doesn't know this. </p><p>Harry also used to have Louis. </p><p>But, the thing is, the fields are covered in poppies and the sun shines on them every morning and Harry constantly feels like there's something missing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	cover me in all your rays

**Author's Note:**

> do the tags explain themselves
> 
> this took me way more effort than it should have so if you took the time to read this despite its pretty extreme unconventionality i would be very grateful
> 
> oh yeah the title's from [orchestra of breathing by lostalone](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vlky-Hq9YK8)
> 
> enjoy?

Harry is sure that once upon a time (in another lifetime, perhaps?) he was someone – or something – different.

He'd never be able to explain why, of course, but since when have the whys mattered in his life? He knows things, he doesn't know why, and that's always been something he's accepted without question. 

Perhaps it's because of what he is now, as opposed to what he thinks he might have been before: now, he knows things without anyone ever having told him (who is there to explain things to him, anyway?), because that's who he is. He moves and flies with the wind; he lets himself be led by it, never questioning it. He is root and leaf and stem, bound to the soil, but at the same time as free as one can possibly be when tied to life. 

He doesn't have an exact idea to define what he is (even though there's something that tells him he did have one a long, long time ago – it's forgotten now) but it's never really mattered. 

And, the thing is, he remembers. For some reason, he knows he's not supposed to, but he's also certain that he has not always been what he is now. He isn't able to recall anything specific, but everything in him is sure of that, down to the smallest droplets of water nestled deep inside his leaves.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that he has never been completely satisfied with what he has. Is it something from his past that calls to him, makes him subconsciously want just that small bit more? Harry isn't sure, and he doesn't know if he ever will be. 

He shifts slightly as the breeze picks up, leaves fluttering the tiniest bit. The night is almost over, and once the sun comes up he knows what will happen (even if he's never experienced it before). The small, almost-formed petals inside him know it too and it's like they're shivering with the knowledge, ready to break free at any moment and take in the warmth they've been yearning for for weeks, the warmth they were created to feel. 

But. Even though Harry knows nothing is supposed to matter except for the silent, still tension in his petals, there's something that won't leave him alone. 

The thing is, the reality he lives in is quiet, peaceful, alive. He lives for the familiar balance between his roots and the soil that feeds them, the stroking on his leaves by the rays of sunlight every morning, the vibrant hum of life that surrounds him at all moments. This is his existence and he's grateful, grateful for everything it brings him. However, sometimes a small, unsettling feeling will appear, and Harry has lived enough to know it's not right. It's the feeling of not being complete. 

There's a _something_ missing, and he doesn't know how or why. All he knows is that, if he allows himself to feel it for too long, the yearning becomes desperate and almost painful, and that he's becoming increasingly empty and that sometimes it scares him when he's not supposed to be feeling fear. Is it his past, after all? Is something like the past supposed to exist for him? Even for someone who knows as much as he does, there are certain things he's fairly sure he'll never have an answer to. 

So most of the time, he'll try to go back to soil and roots and leaves and half-formed petals. And most of the time, he'll succeed. However, there's the other times, which are becoming almost unbearable for him: the times in which he'll stop, ache and wonder, _where is it?_

He wonders if it's too late to hope that now is not one of those times. 

The night is dissipating by moments, Harry can tell. His petals are alive like they've never been, the quivers that sing _now_ coursing through his entire body now, tension stretching out all around him. His faint outside perception tells him it's happening to countless others, too – he feels more than sees the ones like him that are nearby stretch, sway with the breeze, hum almost imperceptibly. And still, even as the bliss and excitement surrounds him too, he wonders. 

_Where are you? What are you? Do you yearn for me too? Are you here with me, can you feel me look for you, are you–_

But. No matter how different from the rest he feels like he may be, there are still certain things he is bound to. 

The first, tiniest ray of sunlight breaks free from the horizon and Harry could never hope to explain the feeling: light upon leaves and almost (almost) all that came beforehand is forgotten. His entire being thrums in warmth and bliss; the chill and faint lack of sweetness in his veins that the night brings gone within seconds. He opens his stomata giddily (the sun never fails to bring a sense of excitement with it) and cool air rushes into his leaves, filling him up... but no, never exactly completing him.

But he tries hard not to let that matter, because it's happening now: the fragile petals he feels so extremely protective of have sensed the light too and they aren't willing to wait any longer. The sun rises higher, higher, and with it the thrumming in his veins reaches entirely new levels and oh.

_Oh._

It's happening. He knew it would, of course, but it still manages to catch him off guard: the bud he'd been carefully spinning for weeks is suddenly no more. Instead, his petals, his beloved, delicate petals, are moving out out out – they've been kept in the dark for too long and now they are positively desperate. And he never stops swaying as he watches, feels them unfurl: the gentle wind picks him up and suddenly he is not protective, but proud. _Look at me,_ he wants to announce, _look at my beauty, look at the fierce fragility of what I've been building for so long._

He doesn't announce it. He settles for feeling it down to the very centre of his stem. It's enough. 

The sun only keeps getting brighter, warmer, washing over Harry like it's there for no other purpose. He feels it gentler on his beautifully newborn petals: it's like it's doing it on purpose, like it doesn't want to harm them. Like it's welcoming them into the world the only way it can. 

And Harry is grateful, so grateful: in this moment, he feels an overwhelmingly strong, urgent desire to keep the sun with him at all times, to never have to let go of it–

–and then it's all so fast, because _sun warmth don't leave me_ –

–he realizes. 

The petals are forgotten in a moment, because it all triggers something in him he's certain he's felt before. It's beautiful and breathless and so unbelievably, crushingly strong and Harry doesn't ever remember feeling like this (but something's telling him he has, before he was even here, before this was his reality) because the things he feels are always slow and powerful, ebbing up and down steadily, but this – this hits him all at once like a tidal wave (he doesn't even question how he knows what a tidal wave is) and he can't do anything, just stay and let it wash over him and it's _unbelievable_.

Sunlight. 

That's what it is, isn't it? That's what it's been all along. Something used to envelop him, something used to touch him and give him warmth; and the brush of the sun against him is enough to reignite the ache for it inside of him that never really left. 

Whatever it is, everything inside Harry screams they should never have been separated. 

He needs it. He needs it desperately, even though he has no idea what it actually is: the desire to find it isn't so much a wish as an actual physical demand. The sun shines gently down on him and all it does is make that need burn brighter: he's close, he has to be, he can _feel_ it. He wants to thrash, he wants to scream, he wants to demand all the attention he possibly can: maybe, just maybe, it'll make this easier? And, for the first time he can remember, he longs for the shape that he used to have. He can't recall anything specific about it, of course not – but he has a very, very vague concept of something entirely different from his reality. Could he move? Yes, he could definitely move of his own accord. A sudden flare of longing for it grips him, but he's too desperate now to even feel the fear that it would bring him in other circumstances.

_Where are you?_

Harry twists with the wind, calls it out into the sky and towards the sun, and the only reply he gets is the silent murmur of thousands of leaves around him.

He doesn't know if hopelessness is a thing he should be feeling. Right now, it doesn't matter too much.

The worst thing is he somehow knows whatever he's looking for is close. For the first time in his life, all he wants is to uproot himself: to tear himself out of the ground, no matter how painful it may be, and crawl around like one of the sad, lonely insects that visit him sometimes until he manages to find it. If it's something that was so crucial in his life, why can't it sense him, too? Why doesn't it reach out for Harry itself? Harry subconsciously rebels against the thought of being so impotent, but in a way, it makes sense. If what he's looking for is something as all-encompassing as sunlight, doesn't it have a way of finding Harry?

Frantic, aching, Harry does the only thing he has left. Slowly, he starts retreating from himself. He cuts off the contact with his newborn leaves, which are still reveling in the life around them, oblivious; the tips of his leaves start losing feeling and it gradually spreads to the rest of them too. He retreats from his roots, starting from the very end and going up until the only thing he can feel is the veins at the core of him and he takes the briefest moment to contemplate the sudden void, the _nothing_ that surrounds him. And then, his perception reaches out. It starts off the same as always: clear but short-sighted, until an unspoken, sudden force seems to take over it and it shoots outwards in all directions and it's the sharpest viewpoint he's ever had and _how has he never known he could do this?_

A moment or two passes and he's still taking it all in in wonder when the need takes over again. It's a mad, rushing race against time again; the longer he waits, the less air seems to seep into his leaves. So he searches, and for the first few moments it's despair in its purest form. 

There are so many others like him, it's unbelievable. Flash after flash after flash of a vivid red fluttering in the wind suddenly appear and if Harry felt hopelessness before, it's nothing compared to this, nothing at all. He always knew there were hundreds of living beings near him – the constant humming that meant life enough to confirm that – and it's not the first time he's done this, but it is the first he's had such a clear perspective and it's terrifying. 

How, _how_ will he ever find it if he doesn't even know what he's looking for?

Still, he refuses to give up. He reaches out further, blindly, almost, because he's never pushed his perception this far before. And, with a jolt, he realizes he can go deeper when he startles an unsuspecting blade of grass beside him. It can– it can actually sense he's there, Harry realizes in wonder, as it shoots a slightly vague questioning feeling back at him. He can actually communicate with all the others and it feels so _breathless_. 

And, with something that can probably only be described as an ecstatic shout, his perception explodes and he can feel everything.

_Where are you?_

It's repeated over and over again, because if he thought he needed it before it burns him alive now. He feels everything and it has to be here, it has to–

_–no–_

–could it be, could it possibly be–

_–Louis?_

Louis is light and Louis is pure vertigo and elation and Louis is an unbearable tightness in his entire essence and Louis is everything that he's been missing and Louis is waving his leaves in the breeze and Louis is _here with him._

He can't understand anything at all but he knows so many things, all at once. He doesn't know what Louis means or where it's come from but it doesn't matter because it _fits_ , it fits perfectly, and there's someone else there and he's like Harry too, his own red petals quivering in the wind and it's like finally finding yourself after a lifetime of fruitless searching. 

_Harry!_

Harry's consciousness bursts back into every cell in his body but somehow the contact remains and _he knows him_. He isn't even sure of what Harry is, something like a vague idea attached to the concept of himself, and he's never known what it'd be like in someone else's consciousness but this somehow feels like he's been hearing it every day for years and it sounds profoundly like it belongs there, and it's him, oh God, it's him.

_–skin pressed gently against naked skin, hands like reverence moving down every inch of his body–_

Skin? Hands? These memories aren't his, or shouldn't be his, but Harry feels something strike deep inside him, deeper than the core of him. This is where they are meant to be. 

_–lips buried into his neck; warm, sweet breath ghosting over it, Louis' voice the faintest murmur imaginable as he says something Harry only just manages to catch–_

Louis is here. _Louis is here._ He'll sing it up to the heavens, he'll shout it at anyone who will listen, he'll tell the sun and revel in the fact that he doesn't need the light, not anymore. It's Louis, Louis, Louis, it's always been, he'd always have had something missing, because when Louis leaves he takes a part of Harry with him, and even though it's a small part it's precisely the one that's guaranteed to hurt the most when it's gone.

_–the sound of it makes Harry's throat tighten impossibly and a single, careful shiver erupt at the top of his spine and fall all the way down it–_

They dance around each other, becoming one, and oh, Harry would give everything up for the pure ecstasy that emanates from every inch of Louis' being. How could he have lived without this? How could he have possibly have thought the warmth the sun gave him would ever be enough to fill that space? Louis hums in agreement, and it's exactly like coming home, and if there's one thing that's certain is that this will not end even after both their petals fall off because they are two opposite halves of the same thing. 

_–"wherever we go after this, I swear we'll find a way to be together."_

**Author's Note:**

> IF YOU'VE MADE IT THIS FAR YOU CAN HAVE MY FIRSTBORN CHILD
> 
> this took so long and it's so short and i genuinely can't tell if it's good or not but thank you so much for reading i love you
> 
> feedback is more than welcome both here and on my tumblr ([teacupsizedlouis](http://teacupsizedlouis.tumblr.com))


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